Difference between revisions of "Newspeak"

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(→‎Use and abuse of the term: This describes obfuscation and bullshit, not Newspeak.)
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==Use and abuse of the term==
 
==Use and abuse of the term==
Newspeak has since become a term for any language that is controlled or abused in the name of political power.  
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Newspeak has since become a term that refers to any change in the acceptable vocabulary, usually in the name of political power. This can take many forms, but is mostly seen through the use of loaded language. Ironically, the term Newspeak has since become an example of such loaded language - ''any'' change of a language is bound to be called Newspeak and Orwellian by someone.
  
Some people, ironically notably conservatives, compare "politically correct" terminology with Newspeak, particularly when a new word (e.g. "homophobia") is introduced to the language. In the case of [[homophobia]], a word has been added to describe a new feeling or attitude while the purpose of Newspeak was to ''reduce'' the number of words in the language, thus removing the ability to express new feelings or attitudes (that this probably wouldn't work in reality is not the issue). Adding words is therefore the opposite of Orwell's original Newspeak, and Orwell would be all for it. In these cases, it is mostly used as a smear against ideas by comparing them unfavourably with the totalitarianism expressed in [[1984]].
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Is the changing of language inherently wrong? On the one hand, good intentions are not an excuse to act like an Orwellian dictator (see [[War on Terror| Terror, War on]]) while on the other hand sometimes terms become forever tainted because it's common usage does not match up with it's literal usage. For example, the term [[nigger]] was originally derived from the Spanish/Portugese term "negro" and was a neutral term referring to any [[African American | person of African descent]]. Any witless person trying to reclaim the term for it's original meaning today, however, is going to find themselves quickly labeled a racist and/or Nazi. Clearly, sometimes language needs to change.
  
A slightly more realistic application of the term is to "[[political correctness]]", when words are banned or discouraged. Racist terms such as "[[nigger]]", or <s>dirty</s> demeaning terms such as "[[cunt]]" are removed from the vocabulary in order to combat racism and offensive language.
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What is the correct way to go about changing language so that it is effective, neutral, and doesn't push a point of view? Well, if history is any judge, the correct method is just saying "fuck it". For example:
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* What do you call a place where you keep all your political and ideological opponents? Concentration camp, relocation camp, internment camp, and various other terms have all been used. The fact that [[Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill| each term has become forever tainted]] just because all of these places eventually became death camps shouldn't discourage you from finding a new term.
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* When Kraft created processed cheese, it's competitors wanted it to be called "embalmed cheese". Which just goes to show that politics aren't the only reason to control language.
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* In a move described by most historians as "fucking stupid" {{fact|joke}}, the Bush administration coined the term [[homicide bombing]] to refer to [[suicide bombing]]. White House press spokesman Ari Fleischer's defense of the term: "These are not suicide bombings. These are not people who just kill themselves. These are people who deliberately go to murder others, with no regard to the values of their own life. These are murderers. The President has said that in the Rose Garden. And I think that is just a more accurate description of what these people are doing. It's not suicide, it's murder."<ref>http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020412-1.html</ref>.
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* [[Sea kittens#The PETA bit|Sea kittens]].
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* What do you call a non-state entity who murders the families of it's ideological opponents? If you don't like them, then they're [[terrorists]], but if they're fighting for your ideology, then they're [[freedom fighters]].
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* You've just gotten fired from your job. Well, not fired. Instead, you've been "laid off", "delayered", "redeployed", "workforce optimized", "simplified", "force shaped", "placed into early retirement", "downsized", "rightsized", "smartsized", and "every-which-but-loose-sized".
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* [[Political correctness]] is an interesting example. While undoubtedly an attempt to control language, most of the time it's a move towards more neutral terms. Unfortunately, for every "African American" (instead of "Nigger") or "firefighter" (instead of "fireman"), you get <s>ridiculous</s> logic-challenged terms like "[[womyn]]" or "personhole"<ref>http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/07/22/do-gooders/</ref>
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* [[Creation scientist]], [[intelligent design]], and other similar terms are ways for [[fundamentalists]] to lend legitimacy to their beliefs without actually having to do anything.
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In short, control of language is not inherently harmful or evil. In fact, whenever someone you agrees with does it, it's merely "restructuring language to better reflect a neutral, factually accurate truth". However, whenever someone you disagree with it does it, it's a "blatant attack on freedom of speech by pushing an extreme point of view through Orwellian Newspeak". Got the difference?
  
 
==And finally...==
 
==And finally...==

Revision as of 10:59, 6 October 2010

Newspeak is a language that appears in George Orwell's 1984. Designed by the ruling Ingsoc regime, its purpose is to suppress thought by severely curtailing both the conceptual vocabulary and permissible grammatical structures of Oldspeak. As Orwell describes in the Appendix: "....a thought diverging from the principles of Ingsoc should be literally unthinkable, at least insofar as thought is dependent on words." [1]

This idea of totalitarianism taken to its logical extreme is deeply unsettling, not least for its immediate, intuitive plausibility. As with many of the novel's terms and ideas, it captured the popular imagination and has passed into modern political and cultural discourse, to be variously used, abused and confused by individuals right across the political spectrum.

Newspeak in practice

Orwell's description of Newspeak is imperfect,[2] but in essence he imagines language distilled to a brute functionality. Basic needs can be expressed, but beyond this, the available vocabulary is so radically compressed as to prohibit anything other than the most perfunctory description or evaluation of any given object, term or concept.

This compression is achieved by breaking down the distinction between the different parts of speech, so that all remaining words can act as both nouns and verbs. Adjectives and adverbs are formed from these noun-verb roots with the addition of -ful and -wise, respectively. Orwell offers the example of the verb to cut, purged as its meaning is sufficiently contained within the new noun-verb knife.[3] By extension, this would lead to the elimination of verbs such as stab, slash, slice, and carve, and knifeful could replace adjectives as diverse as sharp, cutting, pointed, piercing and incisive.

Grammatically, Newspeak is simplified to an almost infantile, pre-literate degree. Irregular verb forms are suppressed (e.g. got, ran, slept = getted, runned, sleeped) and any word can be negated with the prefix un-, (e.g. good : bad = good : ungood, and presumably unknife would mean blunt) allowing the further eradication of hundreds of words. Emphasis is added with the modifiers plus- or doubleplus-, hence perhaps the most famous Newspeak formulation: doubleplusungood.

Use and abuse of the term

Newspeak has since become a term that refers to any change in the acceptable vocabulary, usually in the name of political power. This can take many forms, but is mostly seen through the use of loaded language. Ironically, the term Newspeak has since become an example of such loaded language - any change of a language is bound to be called Newspeak and Orwellian by someone.

Is the changing of language inherently wrong? On the one hand, good intentions are not an excuse to act like an Orwellian dictator (see Terror, War on) while on the other hand sometimes terms become forever tainted because it's common usage does not match up with it's literal usage. For example, the term nigger was originally derived from the Spanish/Portugese term "negro" and was a neutral term referring to any person of African descent. Any witless person trying to reclaim the term for it's original meaning today, however, is going to find themselves quickly labeled a racist and/or Nazi. Clearly, sometimes language needs to change.

What is the correct way to go about changing language so that it is effective, neutral, and doesn't push a point of view? Well, if history is any judge, the correct method is just saying "fuck it". For example:

  • What do you call a place where you keep all your political and ideological opponents? Concentration camp, relocation camp, internment camp, and various other terms have all been used. The fact that each term has become forever tainted just because all of these places eventually became death camps shouldn't discourage you from finding a new term.
  • When Kraft created processed cheese, it's competitors wanted it to be called "embalmed cheese". Which just goes to show that politics aren't the only reason to control language.
  • In a move described by most historians as "fucking stupid" [citation NOT needed], the Bush administration coined the term homicide bombing to refer to suicide bombing. White House press spokesman Ari Fleischer's defense of the term: "These are not suicide bombings. These are not people who just kill themselves. These are people who deliberately go to murder others, with no regard to the values of their own life. These are murderers. The President has said that in the Rose Garden. And I think that is just a more accurate description of what these people are doing. It's not suicide, it's murder."[4].
  • Sea kittens.
  • What do you call a non-state entity who murders the families of it's ideological opponents? If you don't like them, then they're terrorists, but if they're fighting for your ideology, then they're freedom fighters.
  • You've just gotten fired from your job. Well, not fired. Instead, you've been "laid off", "delayered", "redeployed", "workforce optimized", "simplified", "force shaped", "placed into early retirement", "downsized", "rightsized", "smartsized", and "every-which-but-loose-sized".
  • Political correctness is an interesting example. While undoubtedly an attempt to control language, most of the time it's a move towards more neutral terms. Unfortunately, for every "African American" (instead of "Nigger") or "firefighter" (instead of "fireman"), you get ridiculous logic-challenged terms like "womyn" or "personhole"[5]
  • Creation scientist, intelligent design, and other similar terms are ways for fundamentalists to lend legitimacy to their beliefs without actually having to do anything.

In short, control of language is not inherently harmful or evil. In fact, whenever someone you agrees with does it, it's merely "restructuring language to better reflect a neutral, factually accurate truth". However, whenever someone you disagree with it does it, it's a "blatant attack on freedom of speech by pushing an extreme point of view through Orwellian Newspeak". Got the difference?

And finally...

Crimestop is one of Newspeak's less well known concepts, but perhaps the most pertinent (and funny) when discussing the various stripes of fundamentalism. It denotes a learned mental discipline; a conditioned inability even to grasp thoughts contrary to one's own belief system.

"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity." [6]

See also

Footnotes

  1. p. 312 - 1984, George Orwell, Penguin, 1989
  2. It would have been an immense (and somewhat anal) undertaking to realise his vision completely, and completely unnecessary for the purposes of the novel.
  3. p. 314 - 1984
  4. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020412-1.html
  5. http://www.futilitycloset.com/2010/07/22/do-gooders/
  6. p. 220-1 - 1984